Saturday, December 5, 2009

Guy Norris of Aviation Week posted a couple of updates for both the 747-8 and the 787 where he reviewed the pre-first flight test activities swirling around both RC501(747-8) and ZA001 (787-8). All indications are is that there is excellent progress being made to get these airplanes up and flying around in the projected time frames that have been revealed here and on Flightblogger.

Guy reinforced the view that Boeing hopes to have two 787s flying around the Seattle area before the end of the year. I wonder how long it'll be to get the other 4 flying test flights in support of certification?

Guy also put forth an interesting first flight date - Dec. 17th which is the 106th Anniversary of the first powered flight by the Wright Brothers. HMMMM.

Now this weekend Guy reported that Boeing should be conducting or have conducted test of he engine electronic controls as well as flight control software regression testing. There will also be testing of several software updates that have since been installed in the aircraft systems. Additionally, the ground team that will monitor telemetry from the aircraft as the first flight starts will be going through a rehearsal of those flight tests. Lastly, for the Dreamliner 2, Boeing plans to start a series of ground tests on that aircraft on Monday, Dec. 7th. I'm assuming that Dreamliner 2 may follow the exact testing path that Dreamliner 1 is currently is undergoing.

With the Korean Air order under it's belt and the fact that the 747-8I detailed design is 90% complete, Boeing must is steadily marching towards the Jan. 14th first flight date for the 747-8F.GE is hoping to wrap up certification testing of the GEnx-2B engines with natural icing tests. They're hoping to do that somewhere up in Everett around the same time that Boeing is hoping to get the 787 up in the air. How's that for karma!